Points of Order

Martin Docherty-Hughes Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady, who Chairs the Select Committee on Home Affairs, for giving me notice of her point of order. As she points out, the Government have not so far sought to make an oral statement to the House on this issue, but I am sure that those on the Treasury Bench will have heard her comments and will pass them back, perhaps to Home Office Ministers and officials. In the meantime, the right hon. Lady is a very experienced Member of the House, and I am sure that she will be aware of the various options open to her in the Chamber and Westminster Hall, and indeed through her Select Committee.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes (West Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. On 7 January 2020, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald) led an Adjournment debate in this House on the UK special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. I attended that debate not only as a constituency MP, but as the brother of someone who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and who, like the majority of the armed forces, did so diligently and with the utmost professionalism. In response to my hon. Friend, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs, the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Moor View (Johnny Mercer), who I have informed of this point of order, stated:

“There have been allegations made by individuals, a very small number of whom worked within the investigative teams.”—[Official Report, 7 January 2020; Vol. 669, c. 362.]

Only last month, the Minister submitted evidence, not only in person but in writing, to the independent inquiry on the deployment of special forces in Afghanistan, in which they stated that they had inadvertently misled Members of this House by reading out statements that they later found to be incorrect. Indeed, that was also communicated through a letter that they sent in August 2020 to the then Secretary of State—it was part of the evidence submitted last month—which states:

“That I have been allowed to read out statements to the House of Commons that individuals in strategic appointments in the department knew to be incorrect is completely unacceptable. These were clearly not complaints by ‘a small number of individuals within the investigations team’ but widespread.

I have continually downplayed these allegations in public, too, to support”

the special forces

“and the department.”

The Minister had the opportunity to correct the record when the House returned from the summer 2020 recess, but they have yet to do so in this Chamber.

You may correct me, Madam Deputy Speaker—I hope you will not—but the ministerial code is very perjink that it is of paramount importance that Ministers of the Crown be accurate and truthful in giving information to the House. It states that Ministers of the Crown must correct

“any inadvertent error at the earliest opportunity”.

Indeed, the Minister stated recently on social media platforms:

“I am an elected politician who serves the public. I am not an appointed official and my position relies on my reputation and my ability to sustain public confidence in my character.”

I wonder whether you, Madam Deputy Speaker, agree with the former chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, who advised the House that the Minister may have been guilty of

“letting the House of Commons down”.

It sounds like major incompetence.

The House of Commons is based on trust in the word of Ministers of the Crown, and trust that what Ministers say is true. If they promise to do something, it undermines the integrity of the political system when they do not keep to their word. Madam Deputy Speaker, can you advise how the Office of the Speaker will ensure that after more than three and a half years, the Minister comes to the Dispatch Box to correct the record and apologise to the House, and to those members of the armed forces who conduct themselves in a professional manner?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for giving me notice of his point of order, and for confirming that he has informed the right hon. Member to whom he referred that he intended to raise this issue. Mr Speaker has always been clear that if Ministers feel that the record needs to be corrected, they should do so as quickly as possible, but it is also true that Ministers are responsible for what they say in the Chamber—hence why they should correct the record if there is a problem. The operation of the ministerial code is not a matter for the Chair, and I hope that the hon. Member understands that. Having said that, those on the Treasury Bench will have heard his concerns, and will feed them back. If the Minister considers a correction is necessary, one will be forthcoming. I think we will leave it at that.